burton--1001-nights--sample

stakes, like one crucified; and set about torturing and trying to make
her confess.
I could not bear to stand listening to her cries and groans; so I
climbed the stair on the quake with fear; and when I reached the top
I replaced the trap-door and covered it with earth. Then repented I of
what I had done with penitence exceeding; and thought of the lady
and her beauty and loveliness, and the tortures she was suffering at the
hands of the accursed Ifrit, after her quiet life of five-and-twenty years;
and how all that had happened to her was for the cause of me. I
bethought me of my father and his kingly estate and how I had become
a woodcutter; and how, after my time had been awhile serene, the
world had again waxed turbid and troubled to me. So I wept bitterly
and repeated this couplet: —
What time Fate’s tyranny shall most oppress thee * Perpend! one day
shall joy thee, one distress thee!
Then I walked till I reached the home of my friend, the Tailor, whom I
found most anxiously expecting me; indeed he was, as the saying goes,
on coals of fire for my account. And when he saw me he said, “All
night long my heart hath been heavy, fearing for thee from wild beasts
or other mischances. Now praise be to Allah for thy safety!” I thanked
him for his friendly solicitude and, retiring to my corner, sat pondering
and musing on what had befallen me; and I blamed and chided myself
for my meddlesome folly and my frowardness in kicking the alcove.
I was calling myself to account when behold, my friend, the Tailor,
came to me and said, “O youth, in the shop there is an old man, a
Persian, who seeketh thee: he hath thy hatchet and thy sandals which
he had taken to the woodcutters, saying, “I was going out at what time
the Mu’azzin began the call to dawn-prayer, when I chanced upon
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